Hi, new to Arduino. I have done some electronics and pic programming (many years ago) and I am a programmer by profession.

For a personal project and want to press a button that will make a 6 - 12volt motor to open a heavy drawer and make it stop when it hits a microswitch. Then press the same switch and the motor will reverse the action (closing the drawer) and stop at another microswitch.

I have the mechanics worked out and "could" make the circuit work with pure electrics, however I would like to control it through Arduino.

Could some kind person point me in the right direction of what boards I need to accomplish the task?

Which Arduino board? and could you point me in the direction of a motor controller board please?

thanksNemo

That is not really possible until you post the detail specs for the motor, operating voltage range, typical and maximum current demand. Generally a geared motor is used in applications like you are trying. You will need a motor controller, either shield mounted or an external module, but again until your motor charactristics are better known, it's really not the time to give you specific recommendations. Also any Arduino board is capable of this simple application.

Being a simple DC motor, reversal is just a matter of the polarity of the applied DC voltage, which a H-drive motor controller handles for you automatically. At .8 amps any motor controller rated at higher then 12 volts and say rated at 2 amps max or more should work fine, and there will be many you can choose from for that size motor. A more important question might be is 500 rpm OK (not too fast or slow?) for whatever mechanical arrangement you have for moving the draw going to work? Will the motor have enough torque to move the drawer? One can approch those questions using engineering and math skills, or just try it and if it's too small try a bigger motor, at wasted expense. I can't help too much on the mechanical side of those questions, but others may and also have a reccomend a specific motor controller.

A more important question might be is 500 rpm OK (not too fast or slow?) for whatever mechanical arrangement you have for moving the draw going to work? Will the motor have enough torque to move the drawer? One can approch those questions using engineering and math skills, or just try it and if it's too small try a bigger motor, at wasted expense. I can't help too much on the mechanical side of those questions, but others may and also have a reccomend a specific motor controller.

Upto a certain point, too much speed is generally not a problem for motors in applications like this. The speed can always be reduced through using the proper gear ratio(s) in a mechanical linkage (e.g. geartrain, belt/chain drive, etc...). Additionally, if you reduce the speed this way there will be a proportional increase in the torque applied at the working end of the linkage.